Sequence for enabling WPA security

[Good Companion]

My network is currently wide open. It started off as a WEP-capable only, so I didn't bother. Also, I live in an area where wardriving is unlikely.

That said, I recently upgraded my equipment and have all WPA-capable stuff. I'd like to lock it down, but am concerned that if I don't sequence it correctly, I'll have a bunch of computers that cannot access the router.

Does anyone have a good walkthrough of the sequence?

[GroundZero3]

What wireless router/ap do you have? What version of WPA does all your equipment support? What version of windows are you running?

if its some SOHO router, all you do is go into the wireless security section and pick WPA. You have a choice between TKIP and AES. It all depends on your wireless cards and the firmware on them. I use TKIP at home. Then you will want to enter the WPA key. (this can be anything you want it to be unlike WEP. I normally make silly little sentences such as 1l0vec@ake) This is the key that will be used for the clients.

Go into the clients, open up the windows wireless manager manually enter the SSID, click WPA for security, click TKIP then enter the key above. Pretty much that is it

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/815485

[Good Companion]

I'm running WinXP on all machines. I have a Linksys WRT54G router and Airlink 54G PCI wireless network cards (using realtek RTL8185 54G chips).

Sorry for the delayed response. I'll try what you suggest and see what happens.

That said, how can I determine whether my NICs support TKIP or AES?

Thanks!

[GroundZero3]

Most home equipment support TKIP. AES is a hit and a miss, you go to the manufactures website it will tell you what is supported.

The WRT54G is pretty straight forward to setup. If you go into the wireless security section you can setup everything in there.